Eva Rothschild’s “Empire” spiders over Central Park entrance (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Scholars’ Gate, Doris C. Freedman Plaza
Central Park entrance, 60th St. & Fifth Ave.
Through August 28
646-862-0933
www.publicartfund.org
empire slideshow
For her first U.S. public commission, Dublin-born artist Eva Rothschild has constructed the site-specific “Empire,” ruling over the Scholars’ Gate entrance to Central Park at 60th St. & Fifth Ave. Evoking both Franz West’s 2009 “The Ego and the Id” at the same location and Louise Bourgeois’s “Spiders,” which dominated Rockefeller Center ten years ago, “Empire” twists and turns like the nearby tree branches in the park. Although it looks fragile, it is made of four-inch-diameter steel, planting itself in the ground at ten spots, forming an unusual archway inviting visitors into the park. Rothschild, who lives and works in London, has painted the winding structure in three colors, a band of black followed by either red or green, echoing the green trees, the dark branches, the windows of the surrounding buildings, and even the traffic lights. “The Plaza is a threshold,” Rothschild says of the piece, which reaches nearly twenty feet high, “and the work aims not to congest the space but to heighten awareness of the shift that takes place when one steps out of the street and into the park. It should become another gateway between two different worlds of urban experience.” This is the last week to walk under and around and touch the welcoming sculpture, which will be up through August 28.